Duke Ellington: American Music Analysis

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Duke Ellington, one of the most influential musicians in jazz, was known to have described his own unique brand of the genre as “American Music”. While the reach of jazz ended up breaking past the western hemisphere, it was a very American phenomenon. The style of the jazz-age, exemplified notably by Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, described perfectly commercial birth of jazz and the spontaneous lifestyle of the 20’s. However, the Dixieland style of jazz in the 20’s, even 30’s and 40’s could be viewed as an introductory phase to the evolution of jazz. If people were to look past the commercial styles of jazz, they would find a performance-art full of impulse and prestige that could not be found in any other medium. The origins of jazz are important …show more content…
Jazz’s view in the mainstream eye was dying due to WWII, with vinyl shortages killing record sales, and gas rationing and taxes making it more difficult for people to experience live performances, the true setting for jazz music (Blumenthal 74). After WWII, jazz’s dead ashes came a new style, known as bebop. Bebop was characterized by use of technique, fast-paces and the use of complex chord structures. Charlie Parker, stage name “Yardbird” was an alto sax player on the forefront of bebop; his intense, searing style brought the blues sound back to jazz that was lost to commercialism (Blumenthal 84). Charlie Parker played with many contemporaries who were icons of bebop, such as trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and the renowned pianist Thelonious Monk (Blumenthal 81). Monk sent tremors of confusion through his playing of clustered chords and uncanny pauses in his rhythm, but his iconic sound has yet to be replicated and is studied and revered to this day (Scaruffi). His discordant piano playing became the undeniable mantra of the bebop …show more content…
Cool jazz, heralded as west coast jazz, was an inverse of bebop: the fast, complex technique-based genre contrasted wildly with the subdued, tranquil organized cool jazz sound (Bogdanov 11). Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool was one of the first notable and commercially successful cool jazz albums (Blumenthal 96). Cool jazz was a form of jazz that had a lot of white influence in it (Blumenthal 96). Musicians such as singer/trumpeter Chet Baker, pianist Bill Evans (who was recognized for his gracefulness of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue), and saxophonist Paul Desmond were major characters in the cool jazz scene (Feather 32, 179, 213). Bossa nova and latin flavored jazz also came out of the cool jazz scene, and while it was not west coast, it still carried the tranquil cooled down side of jazz flavors. Stan Getz was a saxophonist for these latin flavors with albums such as Jazz Samba and Getz-Gilberto, collaborating with Charlie Byrd and Joao Gilberto respectively (Feather 252, 255). As entry-level as it has been portrayed, cool jazz still broke barriers in jazz music. Pianist Dave Brubeck and his quartet released Time Out, whose name signifies its unusual, never heard before use of time signature (Blumenthal
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